The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-07-17
come step nearder I'll brain yel' Mr.
Gates. when he got back to land. waited for the
Doctor and Mr.. Syfers but they were gone.
WOMEN PHYSICIANS.
DR.. Mary Putnam Jacobs Career--A Profit
able Profession.

Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
New York, July 15.-"Can you conceive what
it would feel like TO be one OF the members OF
King Thebaws Wonderful Sacred Family. Posi-
lively the Last Survivors of this Extraordinary
RaceP" And DIR. Mary Putnam jacob lifted
her fan, for the afternoon was sultry, and swung
to and fro in business-like rocker in her bust
ness-like consulting room. Il have just re-
turned from . conference with doctor. a brother
of my patient believe from ont of town, who
assured me that he had never met woman
physician before Positively he reminded me Of
twenty five years ago. wn.i the few women who
were timidly beginning to practice were stared
at as If they ought not to be allowed out of
their cages in the menaeerie. They were veri-
table curiosities then, and it seems that in all
eyes We are not the ordinary, commonplace NOR
tails we seem to ourselves yet"
DIR. jacob is not commonplace mortal her.
self by any means. Though notthe first woman
to practice medicine in America. she was the
first of her sex who obtained admission to the
Paris TEcole de Medicine and completed its
course, holding first rank in a class which reck-
oned many students since eminent. Gen. Put
nam, Of revolutionary fame, was her ancestor,
and the same traits of frmness and quick reso-
luton of character which marked him crop out
again in her. tempered. especially since the
birth of her children, by womanly sympathy
that gives the completing touch to character,
that is perhaps, a type of the intellectual wom-
at her best. DIR. Jacobs face expresses the
woman perfectly. Acute. logical. bravely
truthful, it fits well upon the shoulders of the
most scientifically exact of the women physi-
clans of America.
Since her marriage to DR.. Jacob himself a
distinguished physician, whose name she has
added to her own, DR.. Mary Put, as she is
sometimes dubbed. half affectionally, half in al
fusion to the old Connecticut hero has led busy
life in New York where, in spite of the curiously
unrruthful adage about womcn's not trusting
women, she enjoys a practice not exceeded by
any physician of either sex, and running up to a
fabulous number Of thousands yearly, besides
writing extensively for medical and scientific
publications. and holding the position of pro-
lesser of materia medica and therapeutics in the
Womens Medical College of the New York In
Urinary.
Her encounter Of tn morning had touched a
vein of "reminiscences, and it need ed but ques-
ton two to bring out recollections of the past
An facts of the present of women physicians in
the city.
when began to practice not a medical So
ciety anywhere admitted women to membership
A handful of physicians only, barely worth count
ing, allowed the claims of a women to rank
regular practitioner. Not one physician in 500
would consult with a woman If called in joint
attendance. A woman who ventured to inquire
into the mysteries of her own body, who had
peeped within the doors Of the dissecting-room,
righteously and discouraged out of existence.
And yet l was not the first. Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell-she has lived abroad for many years
now-opened heA New York Office in 1851, the
first regularly graduated physician of her sex
not only in this city but in the country, and
Emily Blackwell, the present dean Of the
N1r ,artc MAAtn al ala h,,N
behind her.
ITO earn diploma in medicine IN those day
required abundant capital Of fortitude and en-
durance. 1t meant Drawing the opinions Of
those you hold dearest and running counter to
your whole little world. Yet it worth it.
The woman physician has her place in the uni
verse and somebody has to blaze path 70 it."
DR.. Jacobs face wal serene as she spoke, look
ing back over the experiences SO little and yet,
in many ways, SO great distance behind
There 150 women physicians there
abouts in New York to-day, DIR. jacob says,
and Brooklyn and adjoining cities have their
proportion we'll. In many cases the profess
sion offers the best opportunities to an educated
woman of any work now open to her. Her
chances for usefulness among women, an in
creasing proportion of whom are yearly coming
to prefer the services Of their own sex, hard
ly to be calculated. From a financial point Of
view, women physicians find it easier to get
start than men because they are less numerous,
and incomes of $40, 900 q year are enjoyed by
several while $4,000. 500, 600 and $25. 900 not
unknown. Their reception by the masculine
dial, taking into account the brief time in which
their welcome has been Tho County
Medical Society gives them the right hand of
fellowship; other special medical societies such
the American and New York Neurological
Societies and the American Society for Physic-
al Research take them in. The Infant Asylum
has woman in charge of it's lyingin ward.
The Mount Sinai Hospital has q woman among
it's resident physicians. There women at
the dispensaries. The working girls clubs Of
the city make it a special feature of their or
CARNATIONS to secure the services of women
physicians stated evenings every week In
Brooklyn tho Lucreta Mott Hospital was found
ed by O woman physician and is Differed by
For the record of the women physicians, Dr.
Emily Blackwell who keeps . cosy menage with
her adopted little folk in the house once made
the salon OF New York by the Cary sisters,
Alice and Phoebe. is q charming example of
woman past middle life, white haired, strong
faced. kindly and serene. useful, and knowing
herself beloved by large circle. She is at tho
head of the Woman's Medical College, and
mother confessor OF all its students. Size has a
In Brooklyn. Drs Eliza NJ. Mosher and Lucy
NJ Hail. of the younger generation, work to-
gether in q partnership that only of late would
have been counted possible to women. DIR. Hall
was until q few years back resident physician Of
the Womans Reformatory at Sheroorn, Mass,
almost the first institution of its kind in Amer
lea, and DIR. Mosher was it's superintendent, be-
ing succeeded upon her resignation by Clara Bar
ton, who filed the position for q brief period.
The partners have been physicians to Vassar
College. residing alternate terms for the past
two years but their growing practice will keep
both at homo in future, though their leave-tak-
ing makes a void that the college authorities will
find it hard to fill
Dr. Kate Parker is tho resident physician at
the New York Infant Asylum, and statistics of
the lyng-in wards under her care show the best
record of any in the city DIR. Annie Daniels is
one of the best known physicians of New York
in quarters where to be well-known means labor
and self sacrifice. During the summer months
when the infant mortality mounts up to half the
death rate of the city, and jewellers in the tene-
ment districts come to rely upon her with absc-
lutte trust, and her acquaintance with their
needs has prompted the State Charities Associa-
ton to call upon her for papers related topics
several times. DIR. Elizabeth Cushier 10 the first
success ovariotomist among women physicians.
She is a mcrsel of woman who doesn't at all
impress you as devotee of anatomy first
glance DIR. Mary Wattles- Faunce, who fills the
chair of anatomy of tho Womans Medical
College, lives in Brooklyn. where she has the